Hereafter
by M. D. Jensen
Summary: An afterlife reunion with Wade and the professor adresses some unanswered questions for Quinn. Angsty, but with happy ending! Slight WadexQuinn, of course. Please read and review.


Disclaimer: I do not own the characters mentioned herein.

Also, a disclaimer of another kind: I have not seen all the episodes of Sliders. Until a few weeks ago, I was a strictly casual fan. Then I finally saw the Pilot, learned of their origin, and everything changed. I am now obsessed! Heehee. So, anyway, I would just like to say that I waited long enough until I had a good handle on the characters, but the characterization still isn't perfect, I should warn you. Also, I do know about the whole Quinn-getting-spliced-into-Mallory thing or WhateverTF that was… but in my opinion, Quinn should have just plain died. Well, no, in my opinion, Quinn/Jerry O'Connell should never have left the show at all… but that's another story! Note that Wade has also died in this. Obviously. Remmy is not in this not because I don't love him- I do- but just because, well, he didn't die!

Summary: For three of the original Sliders, an afterlife reunion answers some nagging questions. (Succinct summary, eh?) The idea for this came from my never-ending obsession with TV characters and spirituality. (Enterprise fans may want to check out If I Saw You in Heaven and All in the Name of God!) And no, I don't know why I always portray Heaven as a beach in fanfic. I really don't even _like_ the beach that much.

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Hereafter

It was like sliding, only different. The tunnel had a different feel to it. The colors were faded. The echoing quality of his shrieks was dulled. And when he landed, it didn't hurt.

Quinn Mallory climbed slowly to his feet, brushing sand off his jeans. _Sand?_ On this world, the sea must've risen… the shoreline had come further into California. Quinn noted this quickly, and scanned the rest of the beach. It was decidedly strange; he was the only person there, and the sand stretched out endlessly behind him…

"Big beach," he commented to himself.

Something was wrong, he realized suddenly. He was alone.

"Wade!" He shouted. "Professor!"

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No, his mind corrected. _They're gone, remember?_

"Remmy! Maggie! Colin!" No one answered.

Quinn's heart beat faster. Had they been separated somehow? For the life of him… he couldn't remember the last slide. Or, the one before that. There seemed to be a huge gap in his memory; one of the last moments he could recall was meeting Colin. But there had been much after that…

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Somehow, I hit my head on something, Quinn decided, ordering his blood to stop pounding so quickly through his veins. _It's only partial amnesia, and it's only temporary. I'll figure this out._

He paused. Amnesia still failed to account for the absence of his companions, and he still had a bad feeling about this slide.

He turned three-sixty once more. Still nothing. Sand, more sand, water, more water. _Can't stay here forever,_ Quinn reasoned with himself. _Pick a direction and start walking._

It made more sense to head away from the ocean, but instead he turned right and walked along the water's edge. The waves rolled over his feet, and Quinn realized suddenly that he had no shoes on. Odd. He had always loved being barefoot, but there wasn't much opportunity in his life as of late to 'kick his shoes off'. He was pretty sure he had been wearing shoes on the last slide… but the last slide he could remember could've been weeks ago.

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Add that to the list of things weird about this place, Quinn joked to himself. Still, though, the seriousness of his situation was recalled in the racing of his heart. The vortex was gone, and he didn't have the timer with him. Unless the others were somewhere else on this Earth… he quelled that thought. He knew the answer to that scenario and he didn't want to hear it, even in his mind.

"Remmy! Colin! Maggie!" He called again as his pace quickened to a jog. The odd thing- one of the odd things- was, though, that his heart was slowing back to normal. The vivid feeling of panic was fading, almost as though unnecessary. He tried to stay focused on the problem at hand, but a feeling of peace was coming over him, making it hard to concentrate on anything negative. He slowed to a walk.

Then Quinn shook his head. He had to find the others. "Maggiiiiiiiiiieeeee!"

"How about trying us again?" A voice said from behind him. Quinn jumped, startled, but the calm came again quickly. He turned around.

And saw them.

"Wade?!?" He shouted. "Professor?!?"

The two of them stood there, smiling, a little ways off. Each looked perfectly healthy… exactly the way they had looked back before their transdimensional journey had begun. Each of them looked happy.

Forgetting all dignity, Quinn ran to them, his feet kicking the sand every which way, and threw his arms around the neck of the one he reached first. It happened that it was Arturo, who returned Quinn's embrace in a fatherly way. "Is it really you?" Quinn whispered.

"Yes, yes, dear boy, it really is us," the professor assured him. "Now will you kindly stop crushing me?"

Grinning wildly, Quinn released Arturo and seized Wade, spinning her around a few times before just standing there, embracing her. She giggled. "Quinn!"

"You really are my Wade, right?" Quinn pleaded, his face buried in the top of her hair and inhaling her scent.

"Yeah," Wade affirmed. "I'm really your Wade. You're really my Quinn. He's really our professor."

Quinn let Wade go at last, then stared at both of them, just taking them in. "I know you are," he said happily. "I just know somehow." He couldn't resist, he threw his arms around Wade once more, just wanting to hold her, feel her, make sure she was really there in front of them. When he let her go again, he still had hold of her hand.

The inevitable question had to be asked, though. "How?" Quinn wondered.

Was it just his imagination, or did Arturo look uneasy? No, the professor had definitely glanced sideways at Wade.

Dread clenched in Quinn's stomach. The tranquility of the place vanished in an instant.

"Mr. Mallory…" Arturo said carefully. "You haven't… realized yet, have you?"

Quinn shook his head frantically, not understanding. His grip on Wade's hand tightened.

"You're _dead_, Quinn," Wade said softly.

Quinn froze. "What?" He stammered.

"You kicked the bucket. Bit the dust. Bought the farm," Wade explained helpfully.

"Clever euphemisms aside," the professor broke in, "you have indeed died, my boy."

Quinn shut his eyes tightly. That was unacceptable. "I… don't remember dying," he muttered.

"Neither did we," Arturo commented. "The memories will return to you in time."

"It took me a while to remember _anything_," Wade added. "It seems normal that you don't remember the few months previous to your death for a while."

"Normal?" Quinn echoed incredulously. "I'm standing on a really _big_ beach being told _I'm_ dead by two people who _are_ dead and you're talking about normal?"

"Deep breaths, Mr. Mallory!" Arturo boomed, clapping his hand on Quinn's shoulder.

"You didn't really think death was the end of it, did you Quinn?" Wade asked innocently.

Quinn shook his head, not in direct answer to the question but more in response to the general confusion of the moment. "I honestly tried not to think about it," he murmured. Then: "I gotta sit down."

He let go of Wade's hand and sunk onto the beach, but before he was fully there, Arturo grabbed him and pulled him back to his feet. "Well, not on the sand, boy! There's a bench right over there." Quinn looked in the direction the older man had gestured in. There was indeed a bench a few feet away, although Quinn was sure it hadn't been there a minute ago.

Quinn shook his head again, frowning. They all sat down, Wade between the two men. Suddenly exhausted, Quinn put his head in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees, and felt Wade place her own hand lightly on his back.

"It's okay," she soothed. "Don't be scared."

Quinn said nothing for a long time. Wade was about to ask if he ever planned to speak again when at last he broke the silence. "If this is Heaven, where's everyone else? Are there other… _us_ here?"

"In response to your first question, this beach is more of a… of a stopping ground," Arturo explained. "If you will. Newly dead come here and wait to be escorted to the afterlife by their loved ones."

"The professor greeted me, too," Wade said. "He and my mother were the first people I saw."

"She took it a bit better than you, lad," the professor remarked. "And in response to your second question… it's fascinating really. We've met many of our duplicates here, but we are able to tell each other apart perfectly. There are no physical differences… it is more of an intuition. We met the Quinn Mallory who died of Polio, for instance. But we knew immediately it wasn't you, and he knew immediately that we were not from his world. There is no confusion in Heaven."

"It's nice, really," Wade said dreamily. "Easier to keep track of everything."

But Wade's first comment had brought up another point for Quinn. "Where are my parents?" He lifted his head and looked over at his friends.

"Your mother isn't dead yet, of course," Arturo stated. "As for your father… we've met him. You'll be meeting him soon. We were the ones who came to greet you, because you've known us more recently. You'd be more inclined to trust us."

Quinn felt like crying. It was a stupid thing to do, really- completely unfounded- but for perhaps the first time in his life, he was unable to fight it. He bit his lip as tears began to run down his face.

"Aw, Quinn," Wade cooed, and the same moment that Arturo said, rather uncomfortably, "Come, now, Mr. Mallory."

Quinn sniffed and looked away, but made no attempt to wipe the tears from his cheeks. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"'Sokay," Wade said kindly. "You weren't really expecting this. The professor and I were. Makes it easier."

"What'll the others do now that I'm dead?" Quinn wondered aloud, staring out across the ocean. Rembrant, Maggie, Colin… none of them were technological geniuses, to say the least. Would they survive? He began to shiver.

"They'll be fine," Wade assured him.

Quinn put his face in his hands again. "My head hurts," he said flatly.

"This also seems to be the norm," Arturo offered.

Quinn realized that he had stopped crying, but for whatever reason he could not say. Wade seemed to notice this somehow and said softly, "If you're feeling better, Quinn, we do have to go now."

Quinn sat up again and looked over at them seriously. "Is there any way," he asked, his voice still shaky, "that I could check on the others? Give them a crash course in fixing the timer, or something?"

The professor shook his head. "Trust me, they'll be fine, lad. And you'll see them again. _Eventually_," he added quickly, at the look on Quinn's face.

"Ready?" Wade asked. Quinn felt himself nod, and she squeezed his hand briefly in her own.

"Just trust us," Wade instructed. The three of them stood, and the bench vanished, its services no longer required.

They walked down to the water's edge, and Quinn cast one final look at the sand spreading out behind them.

"What's that?" he asked.

Wade shrugged. "We don't know. I don't think anyone's ever explored it. It probably goes on for eternity," she said casually.

Quinn had to laugh. "Still unanswered questions in Heaven, eh?"

"We're not actually in Heaven. Yet," Wade answered.

"It's okay. I like unanswered questions." Quinn smiled.

Arturo smiled back. "Ever the scientist." Wade was grinning. The two of them stepped out _onto_ the water, and Wade turned back, extending her arm and smiling. The fading light of the sun cast a halo-like glow about her head.

"Give me your hand, Quinn."

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The end

Hmmmm… I liked it. I think it turned out better than expected. Quinn might have been slightly OOC, but give him a break, guys, he just died. :) Anyway… I think it was pretty good. Please R as always, constructive critism is appreciated, flames are laughed at.


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